Making a Glock Carbine: Micro Roni Review

There’s an old joke that seems to exist in the Glock world. I heard it at my first Glock Armorers course and it typically starts with someone asking if Glock is ever going to make a rifle. Someone responds, “They are, it’ll be at SHOT show. We just don’t know what year.” I mean a Glock rifle would be great, it’d be affordable, take Glock mags, and hopefully come with Austrian reliability. In the last few years, Glock has fallen behind the market. Plenty of companies are now producing pistol caliber rifles that take Glock mags. The closest you are going to get to an actual Glock rifle is going to be from our friends at ZFI INC. They sell both the Micro Roni and IGB barrels. Mixing both with your favorite Glock pistol gives you one helluva NFA free Glock Rifle.

The Legalities

We’ll start with the Micro Roni, but we’ll also talk about the IGB barrel in a later article. Both deserve their own review. The Micro Roni is a polymer frame that attaches around your Glock handgun. Without the extended barrel, this would make it an NFA item, with the IGB barrel it’s not. The Micro Roni system is designed to be used with a standard Glock pistol, the addition of the 16-inch barrel wasn’t what they planned for. I mention this because it is tricky to install and uninstall the Glock with the long barrel. You do have to remove the stock, which is actually pretty easy. It’s just a couple screws. this gives you enough room to push the pistol and barrel into the chassis.

The Micro Roni

With all that done you are left with an effective and efficient carbine where a pistol used to be. At any time you can remove the gun, swap the old barrel back in place and you have a handgun again. The Micro Roni kit is mainly polymer and is quite lightweight. It features a folding stock that folds to the right and locks into place when folded. The weapon can be fired with the stock folded as well.

You get a full-length top rail on which I’ve installed the Meopta Meosight 3 and XS sights. You have two small side rails and right below the barrel is a slot for inserting a detachable flashlight. The overall length with the 16-inch barrel is only 33.5 inches. It’s also super lightweight, even with a fully loaded 27 round magazine in place. In fact handling it beside my CS Scorpion and I was astounded at just how lightweight it is compared to the Scorpion.

The overall length is also something to consider. The Micron Roni is 2.5 inches shorter than the CZ Scorpion. To keep the measurement fair I installed my KVP Linear Compensator on the Micro Roni Glock Rifle. Comparing it to a 16 inch barreled AR 9 it’s 2 inches shorter overall.

Ergos

Right below the stock is a QD point for a sling, which is begging for a nice little one point. A simple device attaches to your Glock slide and provides you with an ambidextrous charging handle. Manipulating the slide is very easy and the massive ejection port ensures you can easily clear malfunctions. What I really like is the fact you can manipulate the slide, and look into the ejection port without having to drop the gun from your shoulder. Right in front of the charging handle is the easy to reach and easy to use slide release.

You activate the slide lock/release with your support hand. Simply press it downwards with your thumb to drop the slide. Press it up to lock the slide. There is an included vertical foregrip that houses another Glock magazine. My main takeaway from is that the Magpul and ETS magazines must be a bit thicker than Glock mags. This is a friction fit mag carrier and Glock OEM mags come really easy, but ETS and Magpul mags take some pulling.

The vertical foregrip also houses an ambidextrous trigger cover that acts as a safety. It’s easy to ignore if you prefer your Glock’s internal safeties. I understand the this is my safety (holds up trigger finger) crowd. I don’t have a safety on most of my handguns. It’s important to remember this isn’t a handgun, and I can’t holster it while it’s not in use. This trigger guard ensures nothing gets in there if I set the gun down, or if I’m transporting it.

Ths stock works well with and without body armor, and the entire kit is nice and comfortable in the hands. It’s well balanced and well thought out.

On the range

Hitting the range with my little Glock rifle has been the highlight of my week. It’s just so much fun. It’s so lightweight and so handy. Accuracy is top notch. The Micro Meosight 3 is absolutely perfect for this little gun. After a quick field zero, I was ringing steel out to 50 yards with ease. I backed up to 75 yards and after figuring out the 5 inches or so of drop I was back on target. It was ding, ding, ding all day.

In running a few basic drills immediately showed how well thought out the Micro Roni design is. Everything is just easy to reach and easy to activate. Reloads from the included carrier are rapid and with a little practice, I mastered the slide lock/release. The massive ejection port is also nice when it comes to clearing malfunctions. I had a few malfunctions which are tied to a single magazine.

When one of my two ETS extended mags was fully loaded it had issues ejecting the first two rounds. It was only this magazine and only the top two rounds. If I downloaded it two rounds it would work perfectly. I did not have any issues with my second ETS mag. I also had no issues with stock Glock mags, or Magpul mags. It’s a peculiar problem, and I’m not really sure what it’s tied to.

Recoil? What recoil?

When it comes to recoil there really isn’t any. It’s like a tickle, closer to a 22 LR than anything else. It’s perfect for delivering stupid accurate double taps, Mozambique drills, and even firing one-handed when necessary. It really exemplifies some of the advantages the pistol caliber carbine offers. It has the extra benefit of reduced training time when you factor in the factor in that part of the platform is Glock. You get the Glock trigger and Glock mag release, along with your typical Glock pistol grip.

The package

The complete Glock, Micro Roni, and IGB Barrel package makes an awesome little gun. It’s certainly an option if you want to spice up your Glock life. ZFI is the only authorized importer of IGB barrels, and they carry them in a variety of lengths and in a few different calibers. I’ll be doing a full barrel review soon, so keep an eye out for that. Make you check out our friends at ZFI Inc as well.